Arch. Luis Vallejo García-Mauriño

LUIS VALLEJO e s t u d i o d e p a i s a j i s m o was created in 1986 by Luis Vallejo García-Mauriño after many years of experience acquired through family tradition.
From the commencements, where the design and execution of private gardens has been predominant until the present time, the professional activity has been equally centered both in national and international projects, from interventions in large private rural properties, private gardens, to projects of a greater relevance such as the Botanical Garden in Oman, the University Hospital Rio Hortega in Valladolid or the Financial Campus of the Santander Bank in Madrid. All of these are examples of projects in which landscaping, urbanism and architecture are involved and all of them have a common particularity; the natural elements; vegetal and mineral, always forming an axis that branches out, develops and converts the Project into a reality; from a private garden, to a public plaza or a hospital.
LVEP, managed by Landscape Designer Luis Vallejo, has a complete team of professionals with an ample knowledge in all of the fields related, and are completely qualified to carry out all of the phases related to a landscape and architectural project; architects, agricultural engineers, botanists, forestry technical engineers, agricultural technical engineers, quantity surveyors, technical experts in construction as well as in public works, ecologists, etc., A multi-disciplined team working together to accomplish a common objective; a garden, a unique and different landscape, an architectonic space that is perfectly integrated with its surroundings.
Luis Vallejo is also the Curator / Director of the Municipal Bonsai Museum in Alcobendas, the Curator of both of the Bonsai collections; Royal Botanical Gardens in Madrid and Parla Botanical Gardens – Bonsai Museum also in Madrid. Furthermore, he manages and owns the company, ARCEVAL JARDINERIA S.L., in charge of executing the gardens projects.
Although Luis Vallejo has been rewarded with various prizes and recognitions in the course of his professional career, saliency must be given to the prestigious distinction “The Order of the Rising Sun” granted by H.H. The Emperor of Japan; the highest distinction with which the Government of Japan acknowledges the efforts of a foreign citizen for the diffusion and promotion of the Japanese culture in other countries.

Relation:
The main idea for this project arose from the hospitals natural surroundings.
The vegetation of the fields of Castilla, and the infiltration of the course of the river on the plateau, is associated in this case with the construction.
The rivers of gravel with birchwood finishings incur into the courtyards, the topography embraces these courses reinforcing the idea with frequent vegetal associations in the transit areas where the changes in the orientation determine the dominating species.

TYPOLOGY OF THE COURTYARDS

Vegetal courtyards
Situated next to the main traverses and to the hospital room buildings, they are treated in a combined manner reproducing associations in the different plantation strata simulating the natural associations, clearing the way for each other, so that the layout is envisaged in a joint manner and is understood as a single river of gravel entering the building.
The courts perform as areas of physical and visual rest, and are conceived to cross with rest areas where benches are provided.

Mineral courtyards
These are exclusively mineral courtyards with sculptural elements that make references to the vegetal elements of the other courtyards. The design created with the arid minerals, has been conceived to be observed from the top floors of the buildings. These designs resemble the folds of the land in the drought epoch.

Arch. Graham Young
Arch. Anton Comrie
Arch. Annamari Comrie
Arch. Andrew Kerrin

NBGM Landscape Architecture Joint Venture (NBGM)
NBGM is a design firm that was established to primarily work on the landscape design of the Intermediate Phase and Phase 2 of Freedom Park. Primary design input comes from two landscape architectural firms, Newtown Landscape Architects and Green Inc, with environmental and artistic support from Bagale Environmental Services and Gallery Mommo. The team works in close liaison with OCA (Office of Collaborative Architects) and the Client’s (Freedom Park Trust) team of cultural, artistic and technical advisors.

Graham A Young PrLArch (Project Leader – Landscape Architecture)
Is a registered professional landscape architect who graduated in 1978 in landscape architecture from the University of Toronto, Canada. He has spent 30 years consulting and teaching landscape architecture mostly in Southern Africa but has also worked in Canada. He is a director of the firm Newtown Landscape Architects and is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Architecture (Landscape Architecture Programme) at the University of Pretoria, Tshwane, South Africa.

Anton Comrie PrLArch
Graduated in landscape architecture in 1993 from the University of Pretoria, South Africa. He is professional landscape architect and in 1995 he co-founded the firm Green Inc Landscape Architects, where he is creative director.

Annamari Comrie PrLArch
Graduated in 1999 in landscape architecture from the University of Pretoria, South Africa. She is a registered professional landscape architect and is employed at Green Inc Landscape Architects.Andrew B Kerrin PrLArch
Graduated in 2005 with a master of landscape architecture degree from the University of Pretoria, South Africa. He is a registered professional landscape architect and is employed by Newtown Landscape Architects and Green Inc Landscape Architects.

The design is also informed by traditional forms, languages and principles of African architecture and space. Curved lines and rounded forms are typical elements. Natural and local materials were used as much as possible, and plants that have medicinal, ecological and cultural significance where chosen to form and adorn spaces.

Water was extensively used in the project because of its vitally important implication in African traditional culture. The symbolism of water is common to all tribes and plays a significant role not only in African belief systems but also in Western thought and religion as it relates to the notion of ‘spiritual healing’.

To mark Freedom Park from a distance a noticeable vertical element was designed into Sikumbuto. The idea of a rising line of stainless steel ‘reeds’, was embraced to symbolize communication between earth and heaven. In African tradition reeds are used to communicate with the deity through the ancestors.

South African landscape architecture has few examples where African culture and landscape design inform each other to create a place that engages people spiritually and confronts them about their perceptions of the past and visions for the future. The design challenge was to introduce people to African culture, symbolism and spiritual meaning through a landscape narrative that expresses the place in an abstract manner – so as not to alienate any one cultural group. In seeking to meet this challenge, the landscape architects integrated Freedom Park’s physical elements into an already beautiful site to create a landscape that resonates with universal symbolic and spiritual meaning – yet which is unashamedly founded in African cultural expression.

Arch. Peter Latz

Peter Latz graduated from the Technical University of Munich in 1964. After postgraduate research and studio work in urban planning at the RWTH Aachen, he completed his studies in 1968. At that time he also started his academic career as a lecturer at the Academie van Bouwkunst in Maastricht (Netherlands). He continued his teaching activities 1973 as a full professor at the University Kassel and from 1983 until 2008 as the chair of landscape architecture and planning at the Technical University Munich. Peter Latz lectures and teaches worldwide, he was a guest professor at Harvard University and has been adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania since 2000.
Peter Latz established the studio for landscape architecture and planning (since 1988 Latz + Partner) together with his wife Anneliese in 1968. Their son Tilman, graduated architect and landscape architect, has joined the office as a third partner in 2001.
Well known for his integrative and forward – looking work on projects of urban planning as well as large-scale landscape architecture, planning of open space and ecological building, Peter Latz won numerous awards including the First European Prize for Landscape Architecture Rosa Barba, the Grande Médaille d’Urbanisme of the Académie d’Architecture Paris and the EDRA Places Award 2005.

Arch. Carla Rüttimann - Arch. Cecilia Rencoret

Carla Rüttimann and partner Cecilia Rencoret founded the firm R&R Arquitectura y Paisaje in 1989. During their career they have worked in different areas of landscape design, execution and supervision in housing developments, public and private landscape projects and privately owned gardens. They have also participated in research and teaching, presentations in conferences and worked in multidisciplinary national and international teams.
Carla Rüttimann (lead architect), Architect, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, 1987. Postgraduate in Landscape Architecture , Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, 1996, and Master in Architecture from the same university, 2002. She has been professor of the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile and also of the John Brookes Garden Design School in Santiago.
Cecilia Rencoret (lead architect) Architect, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, 1988. Postgraduate in Landscape Architecture, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, 2003. She has been a professor in the same university. She was also assistant professor to professor Flora Manterota, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1995.
Beatriz Majluf (collaborating architect), Architect, Universidad Finis Terrae, 2000. Postgraduate in Landscape Architecture, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, 2002.